


VR 46

by smaychel



Category: Motorcycling RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Friendship/Love, Hero Worship, Introspection, M/M, Marking, MotoGP, Motorcycles, Pain, Possessive Behavior, Soulmates, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:31:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaychel/pseuds/smaychel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was watching qualifying the other day and noticed Uccio's tattoo for the first time - VR 46 on his inner forearm. Naturally my mind went to all the dirtysexy places, and this was the result. Enjoy!</p><p>"Maybe the idea came the first night they had held a girl between them and felt her shiver. Or maybe it came the day Marco died. Or maybe it was just Monday, a day-after-the-race sort of day, and Vale had already been awake and staring at Uccio when he blinked open his eyes."</p>
            </blockquote>





	VR 46

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roadstergal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/gifts).



It started in bed one night; in the grey, strung out hours before daybreak, Vale's breath on his neck and a hand clenched tight around his wrist and a flight to catch in just a scant few hours. Or else it started in an alley in Brno that one year, the year Valentino's bike had unfurled wings and fucking _flown_ , and they had gotten so drunk after that Uccio had been sure he would die from it and Vale had never stopped grinning, never stopped whispering perfect-crazy-drunk ideas in Uccio's ear, his breath a hot tickle and the street spinning sickeningly around them.

Or perhaps it actually started twenty years ago, in the garden of a small house in Tavullia where Uccio had waited as Vale climbed down from the corner bedroom and clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle their giggles, and they had slipped away into the night on somewhat dubiously legal little scooters and not returned until morning, knowing the trouble that would be waiting for them.

Maybe the idea came the first night they had held a girl between them and felt her shiver. Or maybe it came the day Marco died. Or maybe it was just Monday, a day-after-the-race sort of day, and Vale had already been awake and staring at Uccio when he blinked open his eyes.

“It's time,” Vale said, dramatically, and Uccio smiled and nodded before he even thought to ask what it was time for. “For your tattoo,” Vale added, as if they were in the middle of a conversation and Uccio had simply forgotten what they had been speaking about.

They had spoken about tattoos before. Uccio had been there in the room for every one of Vale's, watching strangers pierce the ink into his perfect, unblemished skin. It made him hard. It fascinated him, a compelling sort of sacrilege. And every time, afterwards, Vale told him if it had hurt more or less than the other times, or than he expected. Told him how happy he was with it, inviting Uccio's admiration – it was always readily given. And each time they would talk about what tattoo Uccio should get, if he were ever to get one.

The idea of that seemed rather distant, rather unreal. The sort of thing that belonged to the wild and precious, to Valentino and his like. Not to the ones who drove the vans and mopped the brows, not to the ones who squatted down beside chairs and stared up into eyes the colour of salt water in sunshine and listened with utter concentration to every muttered expletive.

In a hotel bed at night in the oppressive heat of Malaysia, or inside a metal trailer that echoed every rain drop in France, or by the balcony of a flat in London that never quite felt like home, Uccio had put his mouth on every one of them, each spill of ink trapped in his lovers skin. He'd marvelled at their permanence, their audacity.

“Come on,” Vale said, now, on a Monday morning when half the world was putting on a suit and heading to the office. He extended a hand to Uccio, grinning that desperately charming smile that Uccio had never found replicated in another human being. “Or we'll be late.”

They were always late. It used to make Uccio anxious, he remembered, a long time ago. Now nothing mattered except Vale, and they were always together, so it didn't matter if they were late or early or right on time for things. He told Vale as much.

“Ah, but this is different,” Vale tutted, and pulled out clothes for Uccio to wear. A shirt; short sleeved, which Uccio did not think about until much later. “This is something I don't want to be late for.”

The place was clean and bright, not as seedy as Uccio had somehow been expecting. They were led straight through to one of many very small rooms, where it became apparent that Vale had already contacted these people and told them what to put on Uccio's skin, and where. The woman spoke in a language Uccio couldn't understand, but she smiled at Uccio warmly and her eyes crinkled just like un-ironed linen, and when she said something to Vale he came to sit on the other side of the table and grasped Uccio's hand.

Uccio didn't look away from Vale's face until it was done.

It hurt, of course. But then, loving Valentino always had. It suited that this hurt, that it was painful and a little bloody and permanent, part of Uccio's body now, forever. “Thank you,” he found himself saying, part way through. “Thank you, Vale.” His voice sounded unfamiliar in his own ears, and the room smelled strongly of antiseptic. Uccio would remember that smell very vividly later, every time his fingers stroked the black lines reverently. He hadn't slept enough, hadn't eaten anything, hadn't even had a glass of water. He fought not to tremble. Vale squeezed his hand, and said nothing.

It very quickly seemed like something that had always been there. Uccio learnt that Vale liked it uncovered, and kept it so whenever the weather would permit. Vale liked to curl his long fingers around the forearm and grip it tightly when they made love.

Perhaps that's when it started, after all. Back when they first made love, as clumsy teenagers in race car bed sheets they had long outgrown, trying too hard to be quiet. And every time they had done it since, every time Uccio had felt Vale's sighed breath against his face or tasted his skin, sucked at where his hip bones, collar bones protruded. Vale had a way, Uccio always thought, of seeing things not as they were but as they should be, as he wanted them. Perhaps he had always seen this mark, there in the empty skin that had existed before it. Perhaps there was no beginning, and even the tattoo itself marked merely a mid way point.

Uccio tries, sometimes, to remember the first time he imagined these initials on his skin, but when he closes his eyes he sees only a steep hillside in Tavullia where two boys slip down a dark road. Below them is a world stretched out, as if laid at their feet.


End file.
